Multitrack magnetic recording heads are usually manufactured by stacking individual cores in a half shell together with shields and spacers. After lapping the head interface to an optically flat surface, two half shells are joined with a spacer, either mechanically placed or vacuum deposited on one or both of the half shells. The front face of the head is then contoured to assure the proper head-to-tape relationship. Such manufacture requires careful control of tolerances in positioning the various components. When especially tight tolerances are required, it is customary to place an interface slot in each half shell. Because of such laborious techniques, precision multitrack heads are quite expensive and involve high reject rates.